


sing me no sad eulogy

by kirael



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Introspection, M/M, POV Second Person, Past Character Death, dealing with your dad's dumb boyfriend, it's not a reader insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9780182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirael/pseuds/kirael
Summary: A family strung back together with dental floss and a sewing needle.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exadorlion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exadorlion/gifts).



> an extended and edited version of what I originally posted on tumblr: [Link!](http://duckmoles.tumblr.com/post/156013739221/based-on-all-of-exadorlions-jam-fam-stuff)
> 
> title from 1776!!!

What you remember of your mother can fit inside a child's toy chest. Fragments, mostly, that refuse to slot together no matter how much you try. There's this: a duet, your father on his violin, your mother on the piano, and you, cheerfully warbling on in the background. You tuck it away in the back of your mind for emergencies.

This, too: your mother holding your sister in her arms, her eyes filling up with tears, your father standing proudly at the side as if - ha - as if he'd done any actual work.

There's days where you do nothing more than sift through the contents of that chest, revisiting those moments that, at the time, you thought would last forever, even as you're meant to be studying or doing homework or practicing for your next concert.

You know that your siblings hate him, righteously so, but whenever you try, it's matched with a memory of your father cradling baby Jane in his arms and making silly faces at her to make her laugh.

And then – and then there's him.

"This is, uh, this is my boyfriend," your father says. "Alexander Hamilton."

You can't help but feel a stab of betrayal. _Didn't you promise_? (is what you want to ask) _What about Mom_?

But then Hamilton worms his way into Lucy's room in the midst of one of her fits and makes her laugh so hard she starts crying and helps Jane with her homework and –

And stretches, once, laughing, placing his hands on the piano, and says, "It's been a while." He plays a duet with you. His posture is all wrong, he hits the wrong notes, you have to slow down for his sake, but it's perfect nonetheless and you almost break down in tears at the end.

"I love him, Patsy," your father says, stroking your hair during a migraine - inherited, of course, from your father. "And I know you must feel like I'm replacing Martha - like I'm replacing your mother, but he just – he makes me happy."

You squash down the immediate resentment stemming from him even presuming he understands you and instead nod, because, at the very least, you understand him.

Or you think you do.

Your father storms out of the kitchen, his face flushed dark, his eyes stormy. You enter the room only to find Hamilton, sitting there, staring at his hands.

"Martha," he says to you.

"Patsy," you correct automatically, because Martha is your mother and you have been - since birth - Patsy Jefferson.

"Patsy, then." He's quiet for a moment. "Patsy, have I been doing everything wrong?"

You startle. It is not the question you expected, and you're left reeling in the aftermath. And for this - for this, you have no answer.

“You know your father best,” Hamilton says sensibly. “Perhaps – perhaps you’d offer some advice.”

You do, even if it’s not the advice he’s looking for: “He gets these migraines from time to time – when he’s stressed, mostly. Tea helps. I make him a cup of chamomile, though sometimes he’s so sick he won’t eat or drink anything.”

The next time your father locks himself up in his room, windows covered with dark blinds, an unspoken rule to stay silent, you see Hamilton carrying a single cup of tea up to his room. You find a second on the kitchen counter, with a note scrawled next to it reading “Patsy.”

When your mother died, your father buried himself away and forgot to look above ground, where you and your siblings stood, waiting for him to reemerge. Eventually, you stopped waiting.

It turns out, apparently, you didn't have to wait in the first place. 

Mary limps into the room, holding a bag of cold peas up to her eye and glaring angrily with her other. Glaring not at anything in particular, just glaring. In general.

"It wasn't my fault," she says before you can do anything.

"We have actual ice packs in the freezer," you say. You get up and retrieve the ice packs. You decide, in a moment of recklessness, to make a bowl of mint ice cream as well.

When you walk back in the living room, you find her standing, frozen peas abandoned, in a fighting position. And there's Hamilton, walking around her and correcting her posture and her footwork.

You set everything down and watch.

(When you reach out for a memory of your mother, you find Hamilton comfortably slotting into place beside her, like he’s always been there. Like he doesn’t plan on leaving.)

You catch, one day, your father standing in the middle of the living room, leaning down to capture Hamilton's lips in a kiss. His eyes are screwed shut, and he’s clinging onto Hamilton like his life depends on it, his knuckles almost white with desperation.

It should feel wrong, perverse, because that is not your mother and Hamilton is the strange man who your father brought one day and expected you all to get along with, but you only turn and walk away. You think you'll go start on dinner.

**Author's Note:**

> comment/kudo/give me validation if it suits you
> 
> talk to me @ my tumblr: [duckmoles](http://duckmoles.tumblr.com)


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